X-generation... forgotten generation?

I attended this week very interesting event. It was about the future of management. One company had done an interesting research in Finland how we manage & lead companies today and what is the future of management & leadership as defined by managers who responded.

Rather quickly discussion led to age of people - How Y-generation is so different than we are and we cannot continue manage as we do today. Then I tried to ask: Who are in this case "we"? Majority of the audience were round 50+ and "we" was defined accordingly. I tried to highlight that I am not "we" when I am not 50+ but born in -71 so I am not either "those young ones". Majority of audience paid no interest. I didn't belong to the game of "we" against "them". We X-generation are forgotten generation... or are we?

Majority of the insights from the research I agree but not as the future but as is and how it should be. Things like "people need to have personal meaning to their work" and "they need to share company's vision and values also and especially on personal level" - Of course it should be so and it is and have been for years at least how I have managed and led my people. How about "people should not be managed from the distance but work with them as one of them" or "a manager should energize people around you". Of course you work and lead that way (...not necessarily in countries with very hierarchical cultures and structures) if you are from X-generation.

I started my career life in mid 90's and therefore have learnt the values and practices of industrial generations. Factories and all the tangible assets were the most important thing company had and as a last sentence "last but not least important" was written in the slide "people are our most important asset". No one really paid attention to this because factories or power plants are the key to success - so we were told. Actually in the same company during those days (the sales and marketing side) we created a vision leadership model and even wrote an internally published book about it. Naturally majority in the company thought that as nonsense and years later I have heard comments that "you haven't done those things because too early and in a wrong company, don't just buy it". Anyway that was in 1998 and I took advise back then and added vision leadership etc. to my own mgmt. style.

I will not talk anything about Y-generation - there is already too much stuff out there. My point is that we from X-generation know and understand "older generations" but we also know and understand Y-generation without the "we" against "them" setting. This future of management is already here and  natural part of our styles of management... maybe excluding the guys from pulp & paper and other heavy assets industries, sorry guys.

I know this all does not apply in some or even many regions in larger scale (lived in Asia for years) but I noticed as well that these "future of management" ideas worked very well in sub-cultures in those particular countries.

So please do not forget us. If you do... anyway we will have the power (= majority of senior roles) after a few years. Time is working for future of management.

Few thoughts about growth

While working for companies I have been involved in many growth initiatives - either in leadership role or actively participating... and watched from sideline multiple other growth initiatives. So few thoughts about growth more as a flow not as a complete story.

I've been in fortunate position that in most of the cases initiatives I have been involved have been successful but more interesting situation (for this text) is an occasion when growth initiative fails. Not for business itself but more as a managerial and leadership learning point - how the organization will handle failure. For small business it is a true business crisis where even the whole company is at stake but for a large company it is something to just painfully swallow to minimize damage. So it is more about people than business.

Organization is a blend of different individuals with varying career motivations and aspirations. In the case of failure many people show their other side because career is at stake. There are managers with sand bagging mind set who will dig all the proof points they can find how they through the process warned and highlighted possibilities of failure. (In the case of success they would have naturally highlighted their personal contribution) Then we have managers who put the blame only to external factors: market timing was not optimal, customers behaved in unexpected manner, channel didn't buy the idea, etc. But internally everything was done according to plan. Then we have managers who will blame their own people or even want to name some one or a group of people to take ownership of the failure. Of course then we have many humble and analytical managers who will analyze the failure and take it as a learning point - what went wrong both from internal and external point of views. You can pick your own trait how you behave when things go wrong.

One interesting aspect of growth is the growth itself. When one initiative can be named as a growth initiative? Many companies grow while the market itself grows but real growth is on top of market growth. Growth what is on par with market growth is just good basic management but the managers cannot take credit of being leaders with growth experience. Of course the situation is tempting...

For "real" growth managers last year was tough. If you worked in a small company growth opportunities nearly vanished because the whole business market shared the negative attitude towards "nearly everything" especially investing money into something new or for the future. If you worked in a larger company managing a growth unit you were under pressure to cut costs even if your own business was growing "everyone needs to feel the misery equally". In general growth was a bad word to discuss no matter where you worked.

Maybe 2010 is better but the concept of growth is still difficult to many. What is the year or financial climate does not change that growth requires risk taking, thinking and acting differently, stepping out from your comfort zones, identifying people to your team who have growth genes and lot of hard consistent work. Most of us are more comfortable just managing operational business - to keep the engine running, managing main street business, main stream business, large revenue streams - it has many names. It is not only more comfortable for many but also wiser decision because in many cases heroes are named from that side.

Growth is anyway my cup of tea with all the down sides it has. Especially it is so much more fun.